Are you claiming bills are not mailed to customers? As I said, the insurance co mails me a statement, and the Doc does as well. I can't say what happens between the Doc and the Insurance co. Do you really think that 95% of statements to the customer are done electronically. I've never seen that at all, so I seriously doubt the 95% claim.
No, you mentioned "claims", I was referring to claims.
But I guess what you're suggesting is that there should be no billing the patient -- they just collect your balance at the time of the visit.
While we encourage offices to do just that, most won't do it because you cannot adequately predict what the payment will be for a given procedure. While we generally know at the time the service is rendered what the allowable for a particular insurance is, most clinics are not going to have the staff to digest a particular policy to determine what the patient's liability is going to be before the claim is adjudicated.
That said, most of the statements that are sent from a medical facility in any given month are a result not of the billing process itself, but of the facility giving the patient time to pay a bill they didn't pay when it was originally billed. this is no different from any other monthly bill you get -- telephones, utilities, etc.
For example, I often see clinics where they'll generate 200 new statements each month, yet have 1,000 or more to go in the mail. Most of these patients are simply getting their physician to finance their visits. |
